Temptress Moon

Banned in China (which doesn't take much), director Chen Kaige's (Farewell My Concubine) latest opens in 1911, on the night the news of the old regime's fall reaches the wealthy Pang family, an old-money dynasty whose primary family members are a bunch of zoned-out opium heads. Into the perennially stoned perimeter of the Pangs comes Zhongliang (played by Leslie Cheung as an adult), a good kid whose sister married one of the aforementioned patrons of the bong. When he's not busy running pipes and dope to his brother-in-law, young Zhongliang plays with Pang Ruyi (played by the radiant Gong Li as an adult). The little Adam and little Eve share a more or less idyllic existence in this earthly paradise until Zhongliang's innocence is shattered by the adults and he flees to Shanghai where he embarks on a life of pleasurable crime as a gigolo who seduces and blackmails older women. The two narrative threads--Pang Ruyi's rise in the family (as the only non-addict) and Zhongliang's lonely life of passion--eventually rejoin, as the two principals play romantic chess in a game that pits personal longings against family politics. Ultimately, however, Temptress Moon is better looking than telling; the eyes are rewarded by the colorful and meticulously created sets, but the heart is not truly engaged by a story that leans more toward soap opera than tragic romance. An optional purchase. (R. Pitman)